Pacific Highway Blues – Jackie McMillan

062 teddyBearAnother brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Our car was hurtling down the highway. A monotonous memory of strung-together telegraph poles clues me in that sitting down, I probably still wasn’t much taller than the car window’s edge. A hint of peppermint lingers in the air, jolting a memory of my Mother’s tendency to pass them backward to combat my childhood tendency for car-based sickness. It’s something that, as an adult, has never reoccurred.

I am sitting on the passenger side because my sister is younger, and my father’s fully reclined car seat doesn’t yet jam into her legs, inviting slaps for kicking it if she changes position or fidgets as I am want to do. We’re buried in a nest of pillows, doonas and toys, all measures to make the long, boring car-trip back from our annual Port Macquarie family vacation less of an endurance test.

Looking forward, I can see my Mother’s white knuckles clenched around her seatbelt. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see from the tension in her neck that she’s afraid. My father’s stares straight ahead, fixated upon the competition. To him the highway is a race, and every car in front needs to be overtaken.

Suddenly, it strikes me: I can’t find Leo. Not being reticent about coming forward, a shriek leaves my lips, and I declare in horror that my favourite companion is missing, presumed dead. My hands desperately grapple through the myriad of fabrics for his familiar, well-worn fur. Half-turned from the front seat in our still-speeding car, my Mother tries her best to help locate him.

While we’re both engaged in a somewhat frantic search, my sister smiles and quietly declares: “I threw Leo out the window.” My sobs escalate to a wail, and I demand we turn around immediately. The car’s now filled with raised voices as we argue back and forth, my Father angrily snaps: “There’s no way in hell I’m turning around on the highway for a bloody stuffed toy!” Eventually, he was at least convinced to pull over to the shoulder, and with the benefit of stillness, Leo was finally found, wedged under the front seat. Clutching him to my chest, my sobs finally started to ease.

Just as we get underway, my Mother looks around with a curiously bright smile: “Sheona made her first joke!” Somehow this sucks away all my happiness at having my much-loved toy back safely in my arms. I can’t understand why my sister isn’t in trouble for lying, as I would have been, if I’d done the same thing? When I angrily voice this, my Mother looks at me as if I am the most ungrateful child in the world, and my Father smirks as if I’m too stupid to understand something everybody else knows. Silent hot tears flow down my hurt and angry face. You see, this is how I remember my childhood and my relationship with my disabled sister – in fragments that feel very black and white. While the others in my family are laughing, I’m there crying into Leo’s well-loved ears.

I’ve had him since the day I was born, and if you delved deep enough into the collection of oddments on top of my current wardrobe, you’d find him there still. Strange I suppose, as I’m nearing forty; but he’s my sole yet perpetually mute believer, and even from his hidden perch he quietly encourages me to write the bloody book.

Twitter Handle:  @missdissenteats

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